Maverick Synfuels, Petrostar Petroleum Form Joint Venture

Maverick Synfuels, an alternative chemicals and fuels production technology company, and Petrostar Petroleum, a Canadian-based oil and gas exploration company, have formed Maverick Northstar, a joint venture to facilitate the deployment and operation of gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology in the Canadian Provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

The small-scale modular plants will utilize and promote technology that converts a methane-rich feedstock, such as natural gas, flare gas and biogas, into methanol, which offers new possibilities for synthetic chemicals and fuel production in Canada’s methane-rich prairie provinces.

Much of the methane in Western Canada is found in remote oil and gas fields where traditional distribution is not economically viable due to infrastructure choke points and discounted gas rates. Maverick’s modular production platform offers the first small-scale solution that can be co-located at the source of the methane, the company says. The platform converts methane and higher hydrocarbons into methanol that can be used on-site or transported to larger facilities nearby for conversion into higher value products such as ultra-clean synthetic fuels and chemicals.

Converting methane gas to methanol liquid is one component of Maverick’s “spoke and hub” distributed production strategy that builds on Maverick’s patented Olefinity technology. Methanol produced at small-scale GTL plants (“spokes”) located at the waste gas source is easily transportable to larger “hub” facilities, where it can be converted to higher value products such as clean transportation fuels including Dimethyl ether, diesel and jet fuel, or specialty chemicals like propylene using Maverick’s olefins based processes.

The company says this approach reduces capital requirements for converting low-value feedstocks such as waste methane into higher value products.

Maverick has contracted with Plant Process Equipment to manufacture and sell small-scale GTL plants. These modular plants are mounted on skids and can be quickly transported and installed remotely, even in difficult-to-access terrain. The plants can produce up to 10,000 gallons a day of methanol from methane-rich waste gas, or natural gas sources.